They can play with the material all they want. Just don't then claim it's in the same continuity with TOS.
Cardassians in TOS
- Thread starter MurphyCooper
- Start date
Why not?
It can work, regardless of claims to the contrary. But, it requires willingness to engage with it and play with expectations rather than strict literalism.
Do I think SNW lead in to TOS? Yes.
Well, that's the debate. I and others think the differences between the two shows are too great to be believable that they are from the same continuity.
Indeed that is the debate.
And whatever works for you will be fine. But, when I hear so many argue that the richness of TMP comes from TOS, even though the two couldn't feel more disparate, it's hard for me not to apply the same logic to SNW and TOS. There is a richness there that can come from seeing it as a believable continuation.
Equally, there is a richness there to take each as a standalone art piece and to have different categories from TOS, to the ST Films, and in to SNW. Taking them as standalones relives the burden of demand and just allows one to just enjoy it.
I just think that I enjoy SNW more because of TOS and when revisiting TOS find it interesting to see how the pieces fit together. That's the engagement piece for me. Call it head canon, or filling in plot holes, or trying to hard, or whatever. But it's pure enjoyment to me.
That's pretty much it for me. I can't literally look at all of Trek made from 1966 through 2005 and pretend it's all immaculately cohesive. That's why I have no trouble with looking at something like LOWER DECKS through a different set of lens from other Trek and being able to accept it as canon with the rest of Trek. I've already been doing that well before nuTrek was a thing.
TOS is undoubtedly a product of the 1960s and nothing else in the franchise plays like it or will even try to. Heck, even TNG itself almost feels like separate shows between the first season and the rest, with a totally different presentation aesthetic in terms of writing, directing, acting, music, etc. I remember when I first watched it on TNN/SpikeTV that it was jarring when the show with jump back to the first season after reruns of the seventh season had finished.
What's the in-universe explanation for why TOS looks like a 1960s television show yet SNW looks like a 2020s streaming show? Nothing, because they're just make believe products for audiences of their time.
Like Australia. It's there but no one in 16th century Europe knows that yet.
For storytelling purposes, I'd have Cardassia unknown for TOS... except as a secret...SNW could have an ambassador from Cardassia asking for help...the Federation refuse....and this helped push them towards conquest.
By the time DS9 rolls around, some on Bajor look at Sisko as just one overseer replacing another...
By the time DS9 rolls around, some on Bajor look at Sisko as just one overseer replacing another...
I feel that bringing up the Cardassians or any other TNG-introduced alien race engenders the ‘small universe’ syndrome already so prevalent in Star Trek. To find that such races like the Cardassians, Bajorans, Bolians, Nausicaans, Betazoids, etc. were already known 100 or 200 years before TNG lessens the idea of finding new ‘strange new worlds and new civilizations’ over the course of time between ENT and TNG. If all these aliens were already known, where is the spirit of exploration and discovery that Star Trek is supposed to embody? This is exactly what annoyed me so much about ENT. A show taking place 200 years before TNG and we have the Ferengi, the Borg, the Romulans, the Klingons, Risa, etc. Nothing was different, nothing was original.
The Denobulans, the Xindi, the Suliban...
Not to mention dozens of races that we might have seen or heard of before, but got further mentions or development that we didn't have before (perhaps most notable the Andorians, the Illyrians and arguably even the Vulcans).
I'd also point out that the Romulans being a foe of Earth in its earlier interstellar years has been a specific part of canon since TOS, so that doesn't count either.
Likewise, the Borg episode -- which did have some flaws in execution -- was specifically justified by the events of First Contact, so I'd question the validity of any objection to that beyond perhaps "convenient timing"
The Ferengi are a bit more of a stretch admittedly, though I thought that the writers choice to not have them identified as Ferengi was a solid one, and it's not there's real world precident for a bunch of pirates to range far outside their culture's stomping grounds.
Hang on, this guy rings a bell... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leif_Erikson
Only vaguely in terms of looks, by literally any other standard there's a lot of difference.
There's a lot more similar between say... Humans and Bajorans... than Denobulans and Cardassians.
Again, no. Culturally completely different (a multi-species alliance rather than a hierarchical slave empire) for starters.
About the only similarity is that they're antagonistic to the heroes, which is very common in Star Trek species.
Maybe some vague similarity to the pre-Dominion Founders, but certainly not reflective of the version that appeared on DS9.
One thing that sticks out about TOS is how Starfleet seems to be entirely human, with Spock being the only non-human officer. Partly because originally the Enterprise was supposed to just be an Earth ship from the beginning, making Spock an atypical officer. Also partly because of the limitations of 60s television. Giving an extra a set of pointed ears would have broken the budget of an episode, so it's cheaper to just give some guy or gal a uniform and call it a day. It's only starting with TAS and then TMP that we actually got to see an extremely diverse crew (which of course got cut in the following sequel).
There's a dead Cardassian on the space station in "Dead Stop" so they can't be too far away.
I think something else that got lost from TOS is the idea that a number of the worlds united in the UFP were Earth colonies -- the FJ Technical Manual even leans pretty heavily into the idea that the Federation was founded largely by earth and her colonies, from TNG forward it seems more that every race just has their homeworld/system and that's it.
To be fair, TOS had already solidified that with “Journey to Babel” showing Federation representatives from many different worlds. But that same season there’s also a reference to Vulcans having a Starfleet vessel of their own, we just never got to see that on screen. Perhaps an idea was that Andorians, Tellarites would have Starfleet vessels of their own.
At one point the implication was that each member world had at least one ship in Starfleet that was crewed by their own people, and we got to see the adventures of one of Earth's, solely due to us being a human audience.
It would make sense to have whole crews made up of the same species since different species have different environmental needs.
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